With JJ Abrams busy with a different Star franchise in a galaxy far, far away, directing duties on the follow-up to Star Trek Into Darkness have fallen to Roberto Orci. Orci has been promoted to the captaincy after co-writing the first two Trek-boots, and has now given the first small hints as to the direction of the developing third. In short, the franchise is finally going to boldly get going where no one has gone before.
Interviewed on the Humans From Earth podcast (transmission intercepted by Devin Faraci), Orci addressed the issue that the existing two Trek reboots have, for the most part, not strayed terribly far from Terra Firma.
"In [Into Darkness] they set out finally where the original series started," he explains. "The first two films – especially the 2009 [Star Trek] – were an origin story. It was about them coming together. So they weren’t the characters they were in the original series. They were growing into them and that continues on in the second movie. So in this [third] movie they are closer to the original series characters than you have ever seen. They have set off on their five-year mission. So their adventure is going to be in deep space."
That's almost certainly not a coy reference to Deep Space 9, just so we're clear.
That's as far as Orci is willing to be drawn so far, and when asked about future adversaries for Kirk and co he remained cagey. But it does sound as if new villains and alien races are on the cards, rather than any more revisiting of previous glories. He jokes about the Horta, but his real position is "Let's see what's out there".
Having begun the writing process with his regular cohort Alex Kurtzman, Orci has continued it with franchise newcomers JD Payne and Patrick McKay. There's no firm release date for Star Trek 3 yet, but with Trek's 50th anniversary arriving in 2016, we can probably expect it that summer.